TheA.V. Club’s list of 2013’s best films was a group effort, a mathematically assembled aggregate of seven separate lists filed by our regular film reviewers—with a no. 1 choice worth 15 points, a no. 15 choice worth 1 point, and so forth. Because it can be fun to see how the sausage is made (and to know who to hold…

Most movies are about relationships—between law and order, between desire and duty, between the past and the present. But in 2013, many of the great and memorable films—the ones that moved or shocked or stuck with us—were about relationships in the most traditional sense of the word: This was the year of Jesse and…

Cinematic greatness comes in many shapes, forms, and running times. Not all of it is spread across the length of an entire movie—sometimes it’s crammed into one moment, an isolated pocket of excellence. Other times it shines brightly for a few minutes, illuminating the power of what’s around it. Before counting down…

1. Nat King Cole, “Mona Lisa” (1950)Most songs are inspired by songwriters’ emotions or a story that they want to tell, but some are reactions to other works of art. While that usually means other songs, visual art also sometimes serves as a catalyst for songwriters. Nat King Cole’s iconic “Mona Lisa,” written by Ray…

When Merry Clayton ends her stories with “… and the rest is history,” she’s not exaggerating. Although her profile has been raised by 20 Feet From Stardom, which has quietly become the year’s biggest documentary hit, she’s still far from a household name, but her voice, at least, is legend. Her impassioned vocals on…

1.Stop Making Sense (1984), Jonathan DemmeThe promotional efforts for Jonathan Demme’s 1984 collaboration with Talking Heads centered on a series of rhetorical questions about the film’s most esoteric moments, like “Where do the odd movements come from?” and “Why a big suit?” But none of these serve as a mission…

It’s no surprise that John Frankenheimer’s Seconds wasn’t a hit when it was released in 1966. What’s surprising—shocking, really—is that it was made at all. Coming off The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days In May (as well as the great if financially unsuccessful The Train), Frankenheimer was a hot commodity with a…

The monsters that menace an Irish island town in Grabbers come from outer space, but the movie might be the result of a lab experiment gone awry—a Brundlefly merger of Tremors and Waking Ned Devine. But laboratory errors often yield scientific breakthroughs, and if Jon Wright’s horror-comedy isn’t quite penicillin, it…

Midway through Cameron and Colin Cairnes’ 100 Bloody Acres, a character who’s tripping on acid and running for his life stumbles into a deserted Australian tourist attraction called Fairyland Village, where motorized versions of fabled characters lunge at him with leering menace. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the…

Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. This week: As The Conjuring creeps into theaters, we look back on some of our favorite old-dark-house movies.

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of The Look Of Love, Michael Winterbottom’s portrait of British pornographer Paul Raymond, is the fact that star Steve Coogan was the driving force behind its creation. Vanity projects have their shortcomings, but, at least in most cases, they give an actor a chance to explore new…

Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. This week: Instead of looking to the multiplex for inspiration, we honor James Gandolfini by singling out our favorite of the late actor’s performances.

Josef Stalin probably didn’t really say “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic,” but there’s a reason the apocryphal citation endures. There’s a point past which the numbers blur, where the scale of mass extermination becomes impossible to fathom. Historians of the Holocaust urge us to remember the 6…

Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…